


i've been trying to lay my head down (but i'm writing this at 3 am)

by headaaches



Series: university au [3]
Category: Frankenstein & Related Fandoms, Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Established Henry Clerval/Victor Frankenstein, Established Relationship, Henry Is A Good Boyfriend, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Henry Clerval, Selectively Mute Victor Frankenstein, Trans Male Character, Trans Victor Frankenstein, Victor Is Bad At Self-Care, it's in the uni au as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-11-01 22:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20531597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headaaches/pseuds/headaaches
Summary: tw for panic attacks and emeto mention. some more fic for the uni au





	i've been trying to lay my head down (but i'm writing this at 3 am)

**Author's Note:**

> tw for panic attacks and emeto mention. some more fic for the uni au

Henry’s working on homework for American History when Victor slams open the door and storms in. 

“So I’m assuming the presentation went well,” he says sarcastically, watching for some kind of reaction from Victor. Nothing. He doesn’t say anything.   


“That bad, huh? I’m sure it couldn’t have been as bad as you think.”

Still no reply.

“Are you going to ignore me because you’re upset? Really?”

Victor looks over at him and Henry notices his glasses are fogged up and all of a sudden he uses the  _ one brain cell  _ left in his head, because Victor  _ told  _ him about this literally on the third day they were roommates. There was a word for it—what was it called again? Nonverbal?

“Is this the thing you told me about?” he asks, voice softer. “The, uh, the nonverbalism?” 

Victor nods, and he starts to sign something but then stops himself, picking up a stray sheet of notebook paper from the desk and writing something down on it in his practically-illegible handwriting.

_ I forgot you don’t know ASL, _ it says, and Henry puts it down on the table and signs along with his words. “I learned, um, a little bit?” He realizes how bad it must be, because he actually doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but Victor looks like he just witnessed a miracle. “I’m not very, uh, I’m not very good yet but I’m learning.”

They stand there for a moment and Victor looks down at the notebook paper, then picks it up again.  _ I can’t explain this through sign _ , he writes, and shows it to Henry. He nods. 

“That’s okay,” he says, still signing along the best he can. Victor smiles and starts writing. The smile fades very quickly as he continues to write. Henry just watches as his writing takes up a paragraph, then half the page, and when he’s done Henry practically rips it out of his hands because he can’t wait another second to see what happened, what was so bad that Victor just  _ can’t talk. _

— 

_ “And the development of this program will lead to—”  _

_ Fuck. No. What’s the word? He knows the word, he  _ knows _ that he knows the word, it’s right there, he just can’t get it.  _

_ “The development of this program will lead to—”  _

_ They’re all staring. The whole board of professors is staring at him. He can feel himself freezing up and he can’t stop it, he can only stand there hoping that it’ll just come to him and he can laugh it off before they get too upset with him for ruining his entire presentation.  _

_ He can feel the itch in his hands to sign it, because he can probably at least get the idea across in sign, but it wouldn’t do him any good. No one here knows sign, and he’s certain no one knows Mandarin, because if they did he’d have given his presentation in either of those languages rather than English, which he’s still barely comfortable with. But instead, he’s here, feeling the passing of seconds as he desperately tries to find the word. He can understand what he’s trying to say, it’s easy, but he can’t make his brain say it in English. _

_ “You can go now,” one of the professors says, in a tone that’s probably supposed to make him feel better. He nods, feeling his face burning bright red, and picks up his bag, not even bothering to take his presentation notes or even turn off the projector. He just leaves. _

_ Somehow, he manages to keep himself composed all the way out of the lecture hall and through the building, and most of the way across the quad, but he breaks down when he’s almost at his dorm and takes a second to himself, leaning against the building next to his for a second before he gets to the door. _

_ It takes him three tries to get his ID to the card reader. Four tries to actually open the door. Stairs are bad on the best of days, he has next to no stamina, but now he’s got next to no stamina and he’s also crying, so he almost falls a few times on his way up to their dorm.  _

_ When he actually gets to their dorm, he tries to call Elizabeth, but when he does he realizes that he just—can’t talk. _

_ “Victor?”  _

_ He tries to respond, but he can’t. It’s not even that he’s silent, because he’s still crying, relatively loudly, so she can obviously tell he’s there. _

_ “Victor, I’m going to hang up, and you’re going to text me what’s wrong, okay?” Thank God for Elizabeth, who always knows what’s going on even before he does. He nods before remembering that, wait, no, she’s on the other side of the fucking globe, and he breaks down all over again. _

_ After about three solid minutes of struggling with the keyboard, Victor manages to send Elizabeth a basic summary of what happened. She tries to comfort him, but it doesn’t work. He’s pretty much inconsolable. _

_ She calls him again. “You don’t need to talk, I just want to be able to say this stuff to you without it just being a text message,” she says, and Victor wonders how the hell he got lucky enough to have a sister like her.  _

_ “Are you breathing?” Victor nods, but he knew Elizabeth can’t see him, isn’t there, isn’t able to help him. He feels his chest tighten and his breathing quicken, and Elizabeth obviously hears it too, because she starts to try and console him.  _

_ “You’re okay, it’s okay,” she says, her voice quiet and soothing. “Can you talk yet?” _

_ Victor can’t, in fact, talk. He’s trying to breathe but he can’t and he feels the tears pressing up against his eyes and he doesn’t want this to happen anymore, doesn’t want to cry anymore.  _

_ “Shh, it’s okay, you’re going to be alright, Vic,” she says, and Victor holds tightly to the phone with both hands as if that’ll bring him closer to Elizabeth somehow.  _

_ “Don’t you have that cute nice roommate? Could you talk to him about it?” She pauses. “Well, not talk, because you kinda can’t do that right now, but you know what I mean. From what you’ve told me, he’d be really good about it. He’d probably even help you with, like, words and stuff.” _

_ She waits for a few more minutes. “I have to go, I’m meeting up with Justine soon. Text me a little later, and when you get your voice back, call me, okay? I love you.”  _

_ Elizabeth hangs up, and Victor is left there with his phone in his shaking hands and a pile of papers spilling out of his bag. He sits there against the wall for a few more minutes before getting up, and walking into the dorm. _

— 

“Oh my god.” Henry doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t even know if he should say anything at all. 

Victor just nods. 

“That’s really unfair, though,” he says. “You shouldn’t be penalized—it’s not your first language, you’re not comfortable in it yet. Even if you’re technically fluent, it’s literally fine if you slip up. I’m sorry, I just—that’s so unfair! They just made you leave?”

Victor nods. 

“What, and they didn’t even give you a second chance? Like, a date to redo the presentation or anything?”

He shakes his head and looks away, closing his eyes. There’s a long pause. 

“That’s awful, Victor,” Henry says quietly. Victor just nods and puts his arms around himself. “Can you—are you okay? Do you want me to help in any way?”

He reaches for the paper again, and Henry gives it to him, unable to refuse Victor anything. 

_ I don’t know how long this is going to be. The silent thing. It sometimes lasts a really long time. _

“That’s okay,” Henry says, starting to sign along. “I can understand sign, and if there’s anything I don’t get, you can just write it out.”

Victor smiles like he’s about to laugh and signs something.  _ “You don’t have to sign, too. I can still hear.” _

“Oh. Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He laughs, because he can’t stop himself, and he watches as Victor laughs silently along with him.

It hurts to see Victor like this. Henry knows that this isn’t bad, that this just happens with Victor sometimes, but he’s not used to it and it makes him almost scared. There’s nothing he can do about it, which is the worst part about the whole thing. If he could just fix things for Victor, then it would be okay, but he  _ can’t _ , and he wants to, and it makes him so angry that this happened to Victor.

He wants to go up to those professors and yell at them until they give him back his grade, listen to Victor once he gets his voice back, and even though it’s possible, he wants to make it better for Victor somehow, even if there’s no way he can.

It takes about two weeks for Victor’s voice to fully come back. The first few days, he’s completely silent. He goes to class and he comes with Henry to lunch and he does his homework, all without talking. It’s hard for Henry at first, but he makes do. 

The next few days after that, he starts to talk. Not much, just a few words every so often, but it’s at least more than before. Henry doesn’t know if this is good or bad, but it’s at least easier to communicate with him now. 

Another few days pass, Victor gets better, and he starts acting more like himself again. Henry has him call Elizabeth and let her know he’s talking again, much to her relief. She’s proud of him, and she promises to call him more often if it’ll help him cope with the rest of the year. 

It’s perfect for a few days. Victor seems to actually be healthy, mentally speaking, for a few days. They’re doing alright, enough that when a bunch of kids from his philosophy class invite him out for dinner on the weekend after a big test, Henry says yes. He thinks of Victor for a moment, but Victor’s doing much better—he’s doing good enough that he’s pretty much normal. It’s fine if he goes out. It’ll be fine. 

After a somewhat enjoyable, uncomfortably heterosexual dinner, he returns to the dorm, completely exhausted and ready to collapse. Victor isn’t asleep yet. He’s staring down very decidedly at his laptop screen, and judging from the fact that his glasses have fallen off his face and he hasn’t put them back on, he’s been there for a while.

“Vic. Earth to Victor.”

He looks up, blinking a few times. “Henry? Where are my glasses? Why is it dark?”

“Babe. How long have you been in here.”

“What time is it?” Victor looks down at his laptop, then back up. “Um. Like eighteen hours.”

“Have you eaten?”

Victor doesn’t reply. 

“Okay. You get off the bed, put down the laptop, and I’m ordering us food.”

“Can’t,” Victor says, frantically typing something. 

“Victor. You need to eat.”

He shakes his head. “Can’t. Have to finish. It’s fine. I’m fine. This is—this is more important.” He’s back to short sentences, not a good sign, Henry thinks. Victor keeps typing, his eyes blank as he stares down at the computer screen. Henry tries to see what he’s doing, but fails, eventually just pushing himself up onto the bed next to Victor to look.

It’s the presentation. Again. He’s rewriting everything. 

“Victor, are you—”

“They said I could try again. It has to be perfect. I have to make it perfect.” There’s a touch of mania in his voice, but something underneath that is scared and worried and it makes Henry feel a mess of emotions that he isn’t ready to deal with yet. 

“Can you calm down for a second? Breathe? Take a step away from the laptop, at least.” 

Victor shakes his head again, his face unreadable. “I need to—I need this to be perfect. It has to be. I have to—”

Henry takes the laptop and gently shuts it, setting it aside. Victor’s hands flex like he’s still typing for a few moments, but then he looks down at them, then up at the window, and his expression is so empty and vacant that it actually scares Henry. 

“Oh my god.” His hands start to shake violently, still hovering where the keyboard used to be. “Oh my god, Henry, I haven’t slept in four days.”

“It’s okay,” Henry says, even though he wants to set the laptop on fire so Victor can’t do this anymore. “You’re okay. Can you breathe for me? Just deep breaths, in and out. There we go. Okay.”

Victor looks like he’s about to throw up, but nods, taking a shaky, shallow breath. Another. Another. He looks almost scared. Of himself or of the presentation, Henry can’t tell. After a few moments, Victor relaxes very slightly, and he seems to come to. At least he’s slightly more aware of what’s going on. 

“Henry,” he says, his voice shaky. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to cry.”

“Okay,” Henry says, because what else can he say? “Okay.”

And Victor does. 

It’s not even subtle. Victor’s a very quiet crier when it’s over something stupid, like a TV show ending or him forgetting his keys on a really bad day. If it’s any worse than that, it’s completely silent. When he’s crying loud enough that you can actually hear him, it’s time to sound the fucking alarms because that’s  _ very bad. _

"I'm  _ such  _ a fucking idiot, Henry," he says quietly, curling up against him. "Why did I think it was a good idea— _ four days,  _ Henry, I didn't even  _ move _ for most of them."

"You're okay," Henry says, and he feels Victor shaking against him as he puts his arms around Henry even more tightly. "It's gonna be okay."

Victor calms down eventually, and they sit there for a long moment, Victor wrapped around Henry and still shaking slightly. Henry waits another moment and pulls Victor into a proper hug, their foreheads pressed together as Henry moves so they're closer, and Victor is the one to move in so their lips touch. 

It's not like their usual kisses. This one is soft and desperate all at once, Victor's hands tangled up in Henry's hair and Henry's chest pressed against Victor's. They stay there for a long moment until Victor smiles against Henry’s lips and they break apart. 

“Better?”

“Much,” Victor says, laptop laying forgotten off to the side as they sit, intertwined, their hands locked in each other’s embrace. 

There is no more panic for the rest of the night. There is only the two of them, holding each other, kissing every so often, until they fall asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! as always, comments and kudos are very much appreciated!


End file.
